China's Play In The 1899 Boxer Rebellion

What role did China’s foreign policies play in the 1899 Boxer Rebellion? The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, was a movement created by nationalist Chinese men in response to what they perceived to be the westernization of their country by European forces and influences (“Boxer Rebellion”). Most of the people involved were very young men who had been inducted into a society known as the Yihequan, or Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, to fight against foreign influences that were making their way into the culture that many Chinese people loved and wanted to protect (Harrison). The Yihequan felt that their enemies were not only the European troops and missionaries that had made their way into China, but also the Chinese…show more content…Part of their original intent was also to work their way to Beijing and overthrow the Qing dynasty, whose seeming passivity to the missionaries and foreign forces meant that the Yihequan viewed it to be working with the European presence in the country. However, once Empress Dowager Cixi, China’s monarch at the time who was also sometimes referred to using her clan name of Yehonala, announced her support for many of the aims of the Boxer Rebellion, the Yihequan decided that their energy was better spent turned only towards outside forces (McAleavy). Upon realizing that the Chinese central government could not be relied on for help, the missionaries turned to other countries for aid. Over the course of the rebellion, 19,000 outside troops were assembled in all to try to fight back against the Yihequan. The countries that sent aid were Japan, Russia, Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and the United States (Encyclopedia Britannica). Upon the armed militia arriving in China, the members of the Yihequan quickly discovered that their beliefs and rituals did not make them as bulletproof as they thought they would. The rebellion did not last long from that